Advantages and Challenges of Using Physics Curricula as a Model for Reforming an Undergraduate Biology Course

We report on the development of a life sciences curriculum, targeted to undergraduate students, which was modeled after a commercially available physics curriculum and based on aspects of how people learn. Our paper describes the collaborative development process and necessary modifications required to apply a physics pedagogical model in a life sciences context. While some approaches were easily adapted, others provided significant challenges. Among these challenges were: representations of energy, introducing definitions, the placement of Scientists’ Ideas, and the replicability of data. In modifying the curriculum to address these challenges, we have come to see them as speaking to deeper differences between the disciplines, namely that introductory physics—for example, Newton''s laws, magnetism, light—is a science of pairwise interaction, while introductory biology—for example, photosynthesis, evolution, cycling of matter in ecosystems—is a science of linked processes, and we suggest that this is how the two disciplines are presented in introductory classes. We illustrate this tension through an analysis of our adaptations of the physics curriculum for instruction on the cycling of matter and energy; we show that modifications of the physics curriculum to address the biological framework promotes strong gains in student understanding of these topics, as evidenced by analysis of student work.     

Integrating Wikis in the Support and Practice of Historical Analysis Skills

This case study examines the benefits of integrating wikis into the World History curriculum. Six middle school students chosen because of their designation in relevant subgroups—GATE, AVID, and RSP—participated in this 20-week study. Abstract historical concepts can be difficult to grasp; therefore, students collaborated via a wiki on topics that required students to practice historical analysis skills that are utilized by historians and social scientists who are experts in their field. Historical and social science analysis skills add rigor to the curriculum as students develop a deeper understanding of historical events beyond the core curriculum. Findings indicate that students, when given the option, chose to use higher order thinking skills. The high number of responses by the RSP students was a surprising outcome. The data indicates that wikis foster collaborative learning, interaction, and natural student inquiry.     

Age and sex differences in willingness to communicate,communication apprehension,and self‐perceived competence

Age and sex differences in willingness to communicate (WTC), communication apprehension, and self‐perceived communication competence were examined using three age cohorts of participants drawn from junior high, high school, and university student populations. Results indicate that junior high females are higher in WTC than their male counterparts and females at the university level are higher in communication apprehension and lower in self‐perceived competence than are male university students. Communication apprehension and self‐perceived competence show a consistent negative relationship that does not vary with age or sex in the present sample. The degree to which communication apprehension arid self‐perceived competence predict WTC varies with age and sex. In all three age cohorts, communication apprehension is a significant predictor of WTC among women. Among men, self‐perceived competence emerges as a significant predictor of WTC in all three age groups.     

Righting the Commons in Red Rock Canyon

In this essay we examine the coil-bound notebooks kept at the summit of Turtlehead Peak in Red Rock Canyon, a recreational hiking trail on the immediate outskirts of Las Vegas. Of the many different sorts of entries, a “nature-culture binary” is the most dominant and unique pattern to be found in the journals. We argue that this nature-culture binary serves as a piece of rhetorical equipment useful for navigating the daunting ecological complexities of everyday life. Invoking culturally familiar tropes of sublimity-and-banality, hikers renew their civic vows by “righting” themselves through the journals. We thus argue that the notebooks ultimately serve as the locus of a “becoming-common” within discourse. At bottom, the nature-culture binary enables hikers to affirm—and in affirming make available, and in making available make possible—the noblest ideals and loftiest hopes of a shared material existence. We conclude by noting a darker implication of this rhetorical performance, namely that the seeds of a more harmonious ecological future are sown alongside a dangerously innocent self-righteousness.